


Better Than Ice Cream

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s05e15 Remnants, Friendship, Gen, M/M, POV Third Person Limited, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: Episode tag to Remnants: McKay wants to know what Sheppard saw in his hallucination. (Gen/friendship or pre-slash, depending on the color of your goggles.)





	Better Than Ice Cream

“So, what did you hallucinate?” Rodney asked as he followed Sheppard into his quarters. 

“Nothing interesting.”  Sheppard unbuckled his thigh holster and set the gun carefully on a little shelf-thing by the head of the bed.

“Oh, come on,” Rodney urged.  “I told you about mine.”  The story of his own alien-imposed dream-sequence had lasted through most of dinner.  In fact, come to think of it, it was possible Rodney had gone into more detail than was strictly necessary.  But it was a good story!

“Not like I asked,” Sheppard said, which, yes, was technically true, but he hadn’t complained, either.  In fact, he’d been even more taciturn than usual while Rodney was telling his tale.  Brooding, even.

“Well, yes, fine, but _I’m_ asking,” Rodney told him.  “I want to hear your story.”

“There’s no story.  It was just a hallucination, we all got them.”  Sheppard shrugged.

“Yes, but everyone’s was different.  Tailored to their psyche or whatever, we don’t really know, that’s the point.  We can’t figure out the pattern unless we examine the data.”

“We don’t need to know the pattern.  The aliens—AI—whatever—are gone.  Happy ending, roll credits.”

“You said it was unpleasant,” Rodney reminded him.

“Right,” Sheppard agreed.  “As in, not amusing after-dinner entertainment.”

“I’m not asking for entertainment value,” Rodney protested.

“Yes, you are. You’re looking for the psychic porn.  Second-hand psychic porn.”

“So there was sex involved?”

“No! there was no sex involved!  No hot alien babes in wet T-shirts, nobody telling me what a genius I am, and none of your damn business, McKay,” Sheppard snapped, sounding not just irritated with Rodney’s pestering, but genuinely angry. 

Which might have given Rodney pause, except that it was totally evidence in support of the theory that Sheppard was sitting on important data, here, and so he was pressing his argument before he fully registered the danger signal.

“Well, but, see, this is the thing, because everybody I’ve asked, even the ones who won’t cough up details, says that they got something good.  And yes, it’s possible some of them were lying, but I don’t have a good way of verifying or refuting that, without resorting to more—anyway, the point is, you’re the only person who’s actually claimed to have gotten something unpleasant, which is a very interesting—”

“It cut my hand off,” said Sheppard quietly.

Rodney stared at him in open-mouthed silence for nearly five seconds before recovering his wits enough to say, “What?”

“Not for real.”

“Obviously,” said Rodney.  “Still, Jesus!  Woolsey gets a hot scientist babe hitting on him, I get Zelenka giving me random compliments, and you get your hand cut off?  Did you piss it off or something?”

Sheppard shook his head.  Just standing there, his body was tensed like he was about to leap into combat.

“It just wanted to distract me.  It said.  So I wouldn’t come after it with force.”

“Well, for God’s sake, why not try a couple of naked girls, or better yet, a souped-up puddlejumper?  Who jumps straight from ‘distraction’ to ‘maiming’?”

“Me, apparently,” Sheppard muttered.

“What?” asked Rodney, although he was pretty sure he’d heard correctly the first time.

“Nothing.”  Sheppard shook his head again.  “Look, it doesn’t matter.  It was just an alien/AI/psychic/hallucination. . .thing.”

“Well, yes, but. . .but why?  Why was it different for you?”

“I don’t know!  I don’t care!”

“Well, I do!”

“Why the hell should you?” Sheppard shouted, and Rodney reflexively startled back a pace.  But for all that he was yelling in Rodney’s face, it wasn’t actually angry yelling.  That was the sound of Sheppard panicking.  A rare phenomenon, but Rodney had heard it once or twice before.  And now he realized that, without consciously thinking about it, he’d had a solid reason for waiting until they were alone to ask Sheppard about his hallucinations.

“Because you—because I need to understand how stuff like this works, so I can figure out how to save all our lives the next time,” Rodney said carefully.  Which was technically true but fundamentally a lie, as Sheppard could probably tell, but he didn’t call Rodney on it, so Rodney ventured a question.  “Do you think. . .you said it was worried about you using force?”

“Because I’m a soldier.  That’s what I do, I fight threats, I put them down.  That’s my job.” 

“But you’re not—okay, fine.  Right.  So, it associated you with violence, with threat, maybe that’s why it threatened you.”

“Yeah, sure. whatever.”

“No, not _whatever_ ,” Rodney said, exasperated.  “There must be a _reason_ —”

“Yeah, well, maybe I just don’t deserve happy funtimes like the rest of you,” Sheppard snapped.

“That’s absurd,” retorted Rodney.  “You must have pissed it off.  What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!  One minute, I was guarding the botanists, the next minute, I was hallucinating Kolya.”

“Kolya?”  The reflexive jolt of stomach-churning panic was enough to distract Rodney from the incongruity in this new slice of data.  But only for a few seconds.  “Wait, but. . . _I’m_ scared of Kolya, it would make sense for _me_ to have a hallucination like that.  But _you’re_ not scared of him.  Are you?” 

“No,” said Sheppard, but he sure didn’t look happy about it.

“But you—the AI had him hurt you?  In the hallucination?”

“I did it to myself,” said Sheppard flatly.

“ _What?_ ”

“That’s what it said.  It looked in my mind for a distraction, and I gave it Kolya cutting my hand off and—and blowing up Atlantis while I. . .ran around fighting, shooting his guys, winning almost, like it still mattered.  Like there was anything left to win.”

“Good God,” Rodney whispered.  “That’s just—”

But Sheppard just kept talking right over him, words spilling out of him like steam from a busted pipe.

“And he’s telling me my biggest fear is—is failing—failing to save—like that was supposed to _break_ me—like I didn’t _know_ that—like it would make a damn bit of difference—but it was _me_ _,_ if it was _me_ , my own mind serving that all up, if it was giving me what I _wanted—_ ”  His voice cracked sickeningly, and Rodney lunged instinctively to grab him by both arms.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Rodney, his voice splitting the difference between a soothing murmur and a panicked squeak as he guided Sheppard to sit down on the bed.  Sheppard just went where Rodney put him, which was nearly as disturbing as his outburst.  “Going down fighting after all your friends are dead and there’s nothing left to save?  That’s not what you want.  Nobody wants that.”

Sheppard slumped, elbows on knees, head hanging.

“Maybe I do,” he said, barely audibly.  “Maybe that’s what it saw in me.”

“Bullshit,” Rondey snapped, his fear manifesting as anger, just like Sheppard a minute ago, because the two of them might have diametrically opposed temperaments but sometimes their behavior converged.  “I don’t believe it.  You have a martyr complex a mile wide but you’re not that masochistic.  You’re just, you’re an outlier, that’s what I’m saying, it took a different strategy with you.  And if that says anything about your inner psyche at all—which I’m not conceding, by the way, because remember, Machivellian alien AI following its own selfish agenda—but _if_ it does, the most plausible hypothesis is that you think you don’t deserve to get what you want.  That if it had offered you, I don’t know, sex with a supermodel at 30,000 feet, you would have immediately suspected it was a trap.  Like you did on the mist planet.  Right?”

Sheppard didn’t respond to the cue, unless burying his face in his hands counted as a response.

“In fact,” Rodney pressed on.  “It probably saw the memory of that whole mist-planet thing in your mind and figured, hey, temptation doesn’t work on this guy, better go straight on to Plan Horrify-Him-to-Death.”

“I don’t want sex with a supermodel,” Sheppard mumbled into his hands.

“Well, sure, fine,” Rodney stammered, momentarily thrown by the irrelevance of this argument, combined with the fact that Sheppard had spoken at all.  “That was just me pulling examples out of my ass.  But you want plenty of other things.  What about football and Ferris wheels and flying at ridiculously dangerous speeds?”

Sheppard shook his head.  “I like that stuff.  I don’t. . .dream about it.”

“Well, okay, so what’s your fantasy, then?  If that AI had wanted to tempt you. . . ?”

“You know what I saw on the mist planet?” Sheppard raised his head, although not to look at Rodney.  He had that far-away look people get at funerals, which was unfortunately way too apt, because if Rodney remembered correctly. . . 

“Didn’t you say. . .uh, dead people?”

“That’s right.  Pool party with dead friends.  My idea of showing Teyla a good time.”

“Okay, have you thought about maybe not basing your self-image on what the psychic aliens choose to tell you for a bedtime story?  Just a thought.”

Sheppard just shook his head again.

“Look, you must want _something,_ ” Rodney insisted.  “An ice cream sandwich?  A surfing vacation?  A ZPM?  A day at the spa?  Galactic peace?” 

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Sheppard shrugged.  “I don’t think about it.”

“You don’t think about. . .wanting things? What, ever?”

Another shrug.

“That’s impossible.  Everybody wants things, that’s how humans work, that’s how we evolved from sea slugs: first we wanted to get out of the ocean and then we wanted to have cooked food and light during the night and spaceships, and—look, think about it now.”  Rodney plopped himself down to sit on the bed next to Sheppard.  “Right now: what do you want? One thing.  Anything, even if it’s stupid.”

“I want you to shut up and leave me alone,” Sheppard muttered, dropping his face back into his hands.  Despite the words, he didn’t sound angry.  More like exhausted.  Beaten.

But he’d answered the question, so. . .but. . .

“Really?” Rodney asked tentatively, trying to sound accommodating rather than skeptical.  Or sick to his stomach, because Sheppard, defeated, that was. . .very, very not okay.  “Because I will, if that’s really what you want, but I—”

“No.  Not really.”  Sheppard spoke so quietly, Rodney could barely hear him, but the words had all the stopping power of a command. 

“Oh.  Okay,” Rodney agreed, breathless with disproportionate relief.  “Well then, um, so what. . . ?”

“I want you to stay.”

“I said okay.”

“No, I mean. . .”  Sheppard lifted his head from his hands, took a breath, and looked Rodney in the face.  “I want you to stay.”

He looked away again immediately, but that didn’t signify; he’d already landed the metaphorical gut-punch.

“Oh,” said Rodney.  “That’s. . .what you want?  Your one thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.  You—I mean, yes, I will, if you want, of course—but. . .what do you mean?”

Sheppard shrugged, still looking down at his hands.  “I don’t know.  Told you, I don’t think about this stuff.”

Back in his usual oh-so-helpful mode, apparently.  Except, well. . .he was still talking, in his own closed-mouth way—or rather, in the way he pretty much never did.  So. . .

“Yes, yes,” Rodney sighed.   “You know. . .that might be something you want to think about sometime.”

“Think about thinking about what I want?”  Sheppard’s gloomy expression didn’t change, but Rodney could hear a faint tinge of amusement in his tone.

“Yes.  But, you know, not right now, if you’re. . .you know.  I mean, I wouldn’t want you to overtax your delicate emotional ecosystem or anything.”

Sheppard actually gave a little snort of bona fide humor, which warmed Rodney’s insides in a way that was partly relief but mostly. . .something he wasn’t going to try to put a label on right now.

“So, um,” Rodney said when the pause had stretched out awkwardly and Sheppard, of course, showed no sign of breaking it.  Except that then, as Rodney was opening his mouth to generate some innocuous blather to put Sheppard at his ease and distract them both from the unprecedented feelings-talk, Sheppard _did_ speak up, nearly causing Rodney to choke on his own tongue. 

“Rodney.”

“Yes?  What?”

“Would you—”  Sheppard’s volume dropped so low that Rodney had to strain to hear him.  “There’s something else I want.”

“Sure,” said Rodney, doing a very credible job of acting like he wasn’t the slightest bit astonished, if he did say so himself.  “I mean, what is it?”

But apparently that was as far as Sheppard could go with the verbalization.  Fascinated, Rodney watched his lips work to form words he apparently literally could not spit out.  Eventually, Sheppard gave up, took Rodney’s hand and tugged it until Rodney’s arm lay companionably over Sheppard’s shoulders. 

Rodney’s acting skills almost certainly failed him at that point, but it was moot, since Sheppard was looking down at his own knees rather than at Rodney’s face.  Rodney concentrated on simultaneously keeping his arm relaxed and not moving it in any potentially-unwelcome way, which was to say, not moving it at all.

“Okay?” Sheppard whispered, his face still turned down.  His shoulders were rigid under Rodney’s arm.

“Sure,” said Rodney, as casually as he could, which wasn’t very.  “Of course.  No problem.” 

Completely unsure whether it was the right thing to do, he gingerly squeezed Sheppard’s shoulders.  Which actually un-stiffened a little in response, so Rodney took that as encouragement to make the squeeze more hug-like, until he was unquestionably, if one-armed-ly, hugging Sheppard, and Sheppard was. . .not relaxed, exactly, not with the way his hands were clutching each other between his knees and he still wouldn’t look Rodney’s way, but. . .there was some give in his shoulders and his spine, and he was, if not quite leaning against Rodney, definitely listing towards him.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, just barely loud enough to hear.

“Any time.  Seriously, I mean it,” Rodney added, mildly surprised to discover that he actually did mean it.

“Okay.”

Sheppard having exhausted his store of words and then some, another silence fell, but this one felt less fraught, more just. . .almost ordinary, if you discounted the fact that Rodney had his arm around Sheppard, whose head was a mere inch or two from resting on Rodney’s shoulder.  Which, compared to, say, alien-AI-induced hallucinations, was really not so bizarre in the scheme of things.

Still, when you got right down to it, Rodney was not really cut out for companionable silences.

“So, does this mean you like me better than ice cream sandwiches?”

“Definitely.”  There was a hint of smile in Sheppard’s voice.  “Those chocolate cookie things are gross.”

“Really?  I used to love those.”

Sheppard actually chuckled as he shook his head.  His hair briefly tickled Rodney’s nose.  “Only you, Rodney.”

Without really thinking, Rodney shifted his shoulder to get Sheppard’s hair away from his face.  Rather than resisting or pulling away entirely, Sheppard let his head flop the rest of the way down onto Rodney’s shoulder.

Well.  All right, then.  Still less weird than the things you got for free in your breakfast cereal in the Pegasus Galaxy.

“You really don’t like ice cream sandwiches?” asked Rodney.

Sheppard gave a thoughtful grunt.

“Chipwiches were pretty good,” he allowed.

“You like Chipwiches?  I bet we could get the mess to make Chipwiches.  Of course, they don’t quite have that industrial-chocolate-chip-cookie flavor down pat, probably they don’t put in enough preservatives.  But if that’s part of the essential appeal, we’ve got enough chemistry degrees on this expedition, someone ought to be able to reverse-engineer. . .”

His head fully resting on Rodney’s shoulder, Sheppard gradually pressed closer to Rodney’s side, a warm weight, as Rodney rattled on.

 


End file.
